Ransom Notes
by profoundlycan
Summary: This takes place during VLV, starting around Alex and Isabel's conversation. Alex reflects on his friends and his feelings for Isabel, while she is dealing with her own doubts and melancholy, but things soon start to head south...


_This story is based on a beginning and ending challenge from another site I venture. Basically, the challenge specifies a beginning line and a concluding line that the writer must use in their story. Everything else is up to the writer._

**Ransom Notes**

All my life I believed I was extraordinary because of who I am. The irony was on me when I discovered just how ordinary I was, until I met someone who showed me what extraordinary really is. Of course, the joke, again, was on me when realization dawned that the person I spoke of stood next to me in a black, pleather, strapless dress that showed off her . . . amplitude. When she exhaled a dispiriting sigh, I turned to her and couldn't help the downward drift of my vision to her uplifting breasts. Though, I eventually removed my eyes upward and gazed into her dark eyes, sadness reflected in them that I remember recently seeing in myself.

I observed her watching our paired off group: one pair upon the stage, one at the table, and the other on the dance floor, enjoying themselves. Tess' giggle rang over the crowd and I couldn't help but to notice her glimmering smile and how relaxed she was with our very own jock-turned-Buddhist. As Kyle took the opportunity to unabashedly spin the petite alien, I took my eyes elsewhere and stared at my Maria on the stage, passionately lulling the audience into an oblivious stupor with her classical vocals. Her hips swayed lightly to the almost mournful tone of the song and I strayed to the man who stood hidden by the ruby curtains of the stage, his usually steely eyes sparkling with a happiness I'd never seen. Before I eventually returned to the statuesque woman who impatiently stood beside me, I paused at the large, round table at the back of the floor, where the two blackbirds of paradise sat in focused conversation, as if no one else existed in the entire room. I wearily shook my head. There was always something amiss in the land of dreamers.

When I stopped in my observations of our friends, I gazed at the woman I had so long harbored a deep emotional attachment to and gracefully snuck my hand into hers, a perplexed amusement filling her eyes. She gently reciprocated whatever particular feeling I often conveyed in my usually moronic manner by squeezing my hand and began to lead me elsewhere, away from the throng of inattentive patrons.

We quickly strolled through the lines of slot machines, games tables and cigarette smoke, and through the lobby to the elevator and down the hall to the suite we shared with our friends. Upon entering the large room, she slammed the door and pinned me, our hands roaming into dangerously southern areas of our bodies, and we wrestled to the master bedroom where backpacks filled with our unused textbooks lay strewn.

Had I dreamt of this, I did not let my guilt at having so betray me, but unfortunately, guilt is more powerful an aversion to sex than I could have imagined. Though, it had nothing to do with a rather fondly remembered dream of Isabel pleasuring me, but the idea that either I was her pawn in a scheme to elevate her from the monotony of her life or that, on some psychological level, she was mine. I ceased the movement of her slender fingers from unfastening the access of my boxers and averted my eyes from her exposed breasts, swallowing regretfully at how easily we let ourselves be influenced by the spell of our urges.

Isabel's hand reached forward and roughly grabbed my chin and turned my face to look into hers, the sadness I discerned earlier having never left her dark irises. Though our tryst was paused, Isabel did not remove herself from where she straddled my lap with her dress lifted above her hips, and it took every ounce of restraint to not avert my eyes or give in to the demands of the hormonal, adolescent young man within me. If anything at all, Isabel was angry with me for having ended what was soon to have been another disappointment in her vapid though complicated life.

I had expected Isabel to speak, but she reaffirmed her decision and realigned her body in my lap, and for one moment in my life I wished that I could control my bodily reactions - or rather, make myself immune to her alluring figure and persistence.

A low groan emanated from deep in my throat as she vigorously begun to grind into my hips, and she bent her upper body forward into mine to catch my lips in a seductive kiss. When our lips disconnected, we gasped for oxygen and I finally let all inhibition loose and gripped her hips as she outstretched her arms and rested her hands harshly into my bare chest for an anchor.

As we further travelled down our dark road of sexual gratification, I couldn't help but to wonder if either of us had thought to lock the door, but my worry was brief as Isabel proceeded to do things to me that not even my overactive imagination could have believed possible.

We eventually collapsed from the exhaustive activity and grew too tired to care if anyone discovered us in the position we currently laid, with our legs entangled, lungs scavenging for air, and our hair matted in sweat. She fell asleep before I managed to, and I watched her eyelids flutter from REM and the redness in her cheeks fade from a bright strawberry to a pale peach. Without waking her, I grazed my knuckles in a smooth line down the side of her face all the way to her sternum, and then prayed to my higher powers that neither of us would regret our hasty decision come morning.

* * *

I awoke sore and heavy the next day and attempted to block the sunlight from my all ready distorted vision, and as I did so I noticed that Isabel sat curled up in the overstuffed chair in the corner, watching me with her large eyes and drinking daintily from an ivory teacup. I rose onto my elbows and wiped the sleep from my eyes, feeling that the half-circles underneath were more pronounced than usual.

Without preamble I begged the question, "Please tell me you're as sore as I am?" and proceeded to sit upright, my muscles groaning in protest.

Isabel nodded, strands of her golden hair falling into her face. "Probably more so than you," she stated in her usually cool demeanor, taking another sip from whatever was in her cup. "By the way, I did lock the door, but that doesn't mean we're free from our friends prying eyes." At my confusion, she emphasized her expression and I understood what she meant, my mouth forming an O. She then added, "I heard the door open last night, but I didn't hear if whoever opened it came in."

I smoothed my hand down my face and said, "I can only hope that it was your imagination because, otherwise, neither of us is going to live this down." I paused momentarily to throw my legs over the side of the bed, wincing slightly. When I heard Isabel laugh loudly and hide behind her hand when she snorted, I glanced over my shoulder and followed her line of vision down my back to where half my ass was exposed, my boxers in complete disarray. I stood and pulled them up, Isabel still giggling in the corner. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I nodded, "Nothing you haven't seen before Miss Evans." I came to sit at the edge of the bed. "What's in the cup?"

"Earl Grey," she responded simply, sipping from it. "Would you like a taste?"

"No, thank you," I stated nonchalantly, lifting my hand to scratch the back of my head. I found it rather perplexing that neither of us seemed the slightest bit uncomfortable with our decisions from the previous night. Unfortunately, as I continued to contemplate the subject, my face must have given cues to Isabel as to what I thought, (either that or she had finally developed the telepathy I always feared she'd one day have), because she threw an orange at me from the fruit basket on top of the mini-fridge.

"Ouch," I yelped as the projectile bounced bluntly off my head. "You ever consider trying out for the softball team with that arm?" She did not take my humor with her usual grace, though, as I rubbed the back of my head. Defeated, I questioned, "What's on your mind?"

She cast her eyes down to her lap where she picked at her nails, and I saw her shoulders slump resignedly. When she grew bored of cleaning her sharp talons (as I had learned last night . . .) and eventually lifted her head again, my heart almost gave way as her gorgeous brown eyes met my own unnaturally light green ones, and I couldn't help but to compare those eyes to that of a resentfully fallen queen. She inhaled a sharp breath, and I unfortunately knew what was to come.

"Last night," she began, "When we pretty much fell into bed together, you stopped me. Yet, when I basically . . . when I forced myself on you," she paused, squeezing her eyes tightly shut at the thoughts running through her head, "You didn't stop me. Why didn't you Alex?"

Her breathy, staccato words struck me as particularly apologetic and self-loathing, and as I attempted to conjure a response to her question, an icy guilt rushed over me and froze up my insides. I breathed heavily and let my head fall into my spindly hands, wrapping my mind around what exactly had we done the night previously, besides massacre our inherently masochistic relationship. Piece by piece, chunk by chunk, the entire night became clear in my head, and I shuddered at the fact that not only had I allowed Isabel to use me, but that in my allowance of letting her use me, I had used her.

Refusing to meet her probably confused eyes, I stiltedly answered, "I-I'm sorry, Isabel."

I sniffled then hiccoughed into my hand, then gazed up at her. I watched as her stoicism morphed into realization, and her dark eyes slowly begun to well. "Last night, the only thing I understood was that you needed something, anything, to stop the progressing emptiness of what your life has become this last year. I wanted nothing more than to comfort you, but . . ." I trailed off as I noticed wetness against my face, but didn't bother to wipe my cheeks and forcefully continued, "When I stopped you . . . I saw nothing in your eyes, and I knew that you would not be comforted by any other means. You needed that physical connection, just to feel anything other than the black hole your heart fell into. So I let you have me. I let you take me and fuck me, and the fact I took pleasure in it makes me sick."

The swiftness with which she stood from her chair and the resounding echo of her hand meeting my face didn't faze me. She gathered herself together and within minutes, the wind from the slammed door caused my skin to goose pimple. It was then I stood and quickly walked to the bathroom, fell to my knees, and retched.

When I lifted my head from the bowl of the toilet, I coughed and eventually managed my way to the sink to rinse my mouth of the sour taste of my stomach contents. When I finished, I sat on the edge of the pristinely clean porcelain tub and observed my surroundings as I attempted to purge my mind of what had happened. As I glanced around the large lavatory, I stopped as my eyes landed on black scribbling above the top-most door hinge, and stood to read the small handwriting.

I couldn't help but scoff and do nothing but vehemently disagree as I read, "Just a moment. A small moment. A big moment. I've learned it's about living those moments to the fullest. All I need is a moment."


End file.
